There are so many things wrong with this eReader, especially the built in reading app, that I am amazed, that no one touched on any of them yet.
The Likebook mars is an amazing ereader in regards to the hardware thats provided, but as of now its completely unusable for the western customer. I write this in the shallow hope, that someone in the product team will read this, and they will address the most pressing issues.
Reading app:
- entirely can't handle soft hyphens. The end. Text will be displayed broken. Thats a don't buy/throw this in the bin right now issue right there. If you buy an ebook from somewhere and it features soft hyphens - this ereader can't handle it. Again - the end.
- entirely neglects epub or azw3 formating, does its own thing, segments paragraphs with a non defeatable newline, sets undefeatable indents - where are we? If you want to play "we know better than the ebook creator", let me tell you one thing - you are no apple., may I insist, that you adhere to standards, because - thats what they are there for. Ever heard of html? ePub 2 maybe? No. The end.
I also understand that no youtuber usually has the mental capacity to even mention it - but we are here at mobileread - so, some people still do. (Thats what happens if you spend more on marketing than on software engineering.)
- Does use auto hyphening - presumably with english language settings, non defeatable, also set to only trigger with loooong words, so not optimized for justified view in the slightest. This happens if your engineers have no background in making ereaders.
- People that tell you "just use an alternative eReader app", are delusional. Here is why. Font contrast and kerning. Great in the native app - sucks on all other apps (tried so far), if the custom contrast settings (setable via longpress) stick or not - depends on the app. On the official Kindle app it doesnt work - which makes it unusable (font color isnt black but a light grey - image contrast cant be altered - we can end right there).
- With the comixology app it works. You even can install a screen rotation app, and once you allow it to un in the background (battery savings setting under user settings), it will rotate the app successfully (for guided view). This for once is actually surprisingly usable. Its great in fact.
- Using "Perfect Viewer" - the user contrast settings again dont work. That is, image contrast enhancement works for the first image thats displayed - but not on any of the others. Sounds like hit and miss? - Well, at least you can alter the image contrast via the built in Perfect Viewer settings (hue and contrast) and thereby greatly better the contrast and sharpness of the displayed image. If you play with it for about half an hour, you'll end up with a usable result. Actually works great in the end (image position center, always use half pages, set hue and contrast (actually contrast and lightness) manually). But I'd actually guess, that noone in here will do this - and most will complain about a washed out image.
- To this day I don't know what the "optimize contrast" option in individual app settings does. And I have no way to find out. Great. How abouta manual? In english maybe? One can still dream.. Also - there are about 5 occurences of percentage "readed" still left in the english translation of the most current firmware. Get a native english speaker to go over your translation - maybe.
- The cover it comes with is adding to the very slim footprint, but it has a hard plastic shell in the back. Thats a design failure. We all know by now, that the texture of an ereaders back matters. Most have gone with either soft plastic, or delivered a cover that has fake leather/a soft textile in the back AND the front. With the likebook you have the cheap black plastic shell feeling of ereader greatness. Not that great. The next time, spend 2 dollars more on the casing and make people happy.
- The "just use an android app" excuse for everything not working as it should (how about optimized contrast profiles for the most popular apps?, how about a default reading software that actually works with hyphenated ebooks) is a lame one - and most users will end up with a collection of hearsay applications - wrongly set (most ereading apps including moon+ will come with tablet presets (animations, image backgrounds...) that you have to change with an ereader. Again, I see no one in here at least mentioning that.
And now to the heartbreaking part - the likebook mars is so close to being great, its almost a tragedy.
The orange tinted nightmode backlight is great - people still using kindles with white leds only are missing out, this is "the future" (/or recent past, depending on your ereader..
). There is no way (out of the box) to adjust its color temperature, which is a tad too orange on all settings, but your eyes eventually adjust - and you dont mind. Hint - would profit majorly from a color adjustment option (as far as it is possible with only white and orange leds).
- the top left icon on the touchscreen has a touch miss rate of about 30%. It seemingly too small. Also its often used for home or back - which is a pitty. Design this better for a better user experience.
- If you sync your books via dropbox sync - the library doesnt refresh (WHAT?), not even on a reboot (WHAT?). If you sync via usb - it does so in realtime.
- I've had issues with an ebook cover not being displayed after deleting a book and reuploading - I've yet to figure out what causes it. I've had another issue of the built in ereader displaying a cached version of an epub rather than the actual one that was on the device - until I rebooted (what) - so part of this seems to be a "who the heck knows what database options they use" problem. Again, no one is writing about that. Troubleshooting this was bothersome and no solution yet.
The strongest point so far - for this ereader is customizability. That even goes for the native ereader app. To be able to set different modes of touch interact (Kindle style; only left, right, center zones, ..) is great. To be able to set font contrast that gradually is especially great, same for font size, page borders and so on. But - may I suggest showing numbers for those steps? Because one slider may have 50, the other one may have 10, on some numbers show up on scrolling on others they dont... - so going back to the default preset even is problematic, because you dont exactly know which one it is - and you can only guess - because you cant see the actual settings (slider numbers/positions).
Readability of this Carta eink is the best I've seen so far on a capacitive touch frontlight ereader. Their diffusion layer is top. Even seems better at a slightly steeper angle than 90°, which is the way to actually read books. Wonderful - again, hardware is top.
Footprint is great. They must use the smallest battery available
(and yes, battery life isnt great), but this device is slim. And about as light as I imagine you can make it for the size. Again - hardware design is top. Corners are a bit too "round" to match with the still square eink display - but thats nitpicking on design choices..
Will test Ivona compatibility next. Stay tuned.
Also - shame on this only being a hype thread so far.
The Likebook mars touches on achieving greatness, but - in the end isnt there yet. I'm imagining, that all optimization went into the capabilities for the chinese user, and that they get a great reading experience - and optimized/at least working contrast profiles for certain apps, while western users mostly dont.
Thats the likebook story in one paragraph.
Havent tested koreader on the device yet - which is probably the reading platform ("app") I'll end up with.